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🎩 2025 Election Preview: Housing cheat sheet

👏 Good news in housing will return next edition

🧩 More from Studenthaus

🗂 Rental resources

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🗳️ 2025 Election Preview: Housing cheat sheet

This week, Canadians head to the polls with housing costs still climbing. Every major party says they have the fix, so we lined their promises up side‑by‑side in a cheat sheet. We’ll let you decide who best represents young voters.

Breaking down the platforms

Conservative Party

• Build 2.3 million homes in 5 years

• Cut GST on new homes up to $1.3m

• Sell 15% of federal buildings and require them to be turned into affordable housing

• Withhold federal funding for cities unless they hit a target of 15% more homes every year

• Incentivize cities that cut development charges and speed up permitting

Read the full housing platform

What this gets right: Identifies GST and development charges as a hurdle to home purchases and construction, and links federal funding to city implementation of housing policy reforms.

Where this could be better: No dedicated measure for young renters and does not explain why 15% growth was chosen for every city.

Liberal Party

• Build 500k homes per year

• Provide $10b in low-cost financing to affordable housing builders and $25b in financing for prefabricated home builders

• Act as a developer to build affordable housing on public land

• Cut GST for first-time homebuyers on homes up to $1m

• Halve municipal development charges for multi-unit housing

• Reintroduce the MURB tax incentive program

Read the full housing platform

What this gets right: Identifies GST, development charges, and financing as barriers to new development, suggests densifying public land, and proposes federal incentives to cities that implement housing policy adjustments.

Where this could be better: Offers no specific program for young renters and would return the government to a direct‑developer role last used in the 1990s.

New Democratic Party

• Build 3 million new homes, including non-market and affordable housing

• Target 20% non-market housing in every community

• Freeze development charges, end exclusionary zoning, and allow at least 4 units on every lot

• Implement a Renters’ Bill of Rights

Read the full housing platform

What this gets right: Identifies development charges and zoning as bottlenecks to new housing, and proposes rent control and non-market incentives.

Where this could be better: Offers no specific program for young renters, middle-income households, or buyers, and details on how proposed financing programs differ from existing programs are not yet published.

The Bottom Line

No matter which party you decide aligns best with your perspective, you should get out and VOTE. This may be one of the most important elections of our lifetimes. Find your riding and make a plan to vote with Elections Canada.

🧩 More from Studenthaus

🗂 Rental resources

Whether it’s your first time living on your own or you’ve been renting for years, this is the time of year that lots of young people are considering their future housing plans.

Is your landlord illegally entering your unit, trying to change your agreement without your consent, or unreasonably preventing you from having overnight guests?

If so, and you can’t quite figure out how to word a message to your landlord, check out the list of template letters from BC’s Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre to help you out.

There’s even a template roommate agreement.

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